…but I’ve misplaced a 2″ (BODY size, never mind the dozens of legs) Brown Spider. Not an hour ago, he or she graced the wall just above my mosquito net. It could be a long night.

YOU KNOW IT’S OK TO LEAVE ANANDA ASHRAM when…

–> you’ve stopped taking pictures (these and the rest are from 10 days ago):

–> you are not surprised to find your laundry, waving in the wind for 30 minutes, is bone dry, probably because it is 87F.

–> the table in your hut, the table you’ve had piled with books, empty water bottles, mosquito repellent, and more books, looks like this once again.

Gear

(+ this computer and also + a stick of burning incense, named “Opium Flower”)

–> you haven’t learned his name, but you have learned what he is doing:

Palms for mats

–>you are almost inured to this sight from your porch:

–> you firmly believe that the Italian singer, Mina, has slipped into the ashram, because when Loradonna sang the Magnificat for grace tonight, this is how she sounded. Exactly (30 seconds makes my point).

–> you’ve still not located the gigantic arachnid, but you are ready to turn off the computer and go to sleep. You expect to dream about the story Andrew told you last year in this very place, Ananda Ashram. It was about how he arrived back in New Zealand one year after spending several months in India, and when he opened his suitcase for Customs, out crawled a Gigantic Brown Spider. Andrew is our resident naturalist, so he would tell that story, wouldn’t he? And laugh, oh, yes, he thought it was just hysterical, didn’t he?

And now, Gentle Reader, if you hear something at this second, let me explain that it is the sound of 2 tiny suitcases and 1 huge purse being zipped up very, very tightly, just before I dive under my mosquito net.